Posted
by
timothyon Thursday May 15, 2014 @10:51AM
from the more-moving-parts-to-fail dept.

New submitter jvp (27996) writes "Adobe's authentication system for its Creative Cloud as well as its website services is down, and has been since Wednesday (14 May) afternoon. What this means: If you're a Creative Cloud subscriber, you can't log into your account via the desktop application. Online services such as the fonts are not available. Applications (eg: Photoshop, Premiere, etc) will continue to work. Softpedia has a nice article on it, but their time frames are off quite a bit." As of this writing, a message on the Adobe Creative Cloud page says "Creative Cloud is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience." Even though I've come to like some remote-hosted software, like gmail, I don't think I'd want tools for manipulating local media tied even loosely to the uptime of a remote computer (or network connection).

What's that say for you, then, as someone who assumptively dismisses the knowledge of others as being factually incorrect, while it is, in fact, your own assertion that is wrong. CC apps work for up to 60 days offline before needing re-validated.

Calm down you dolt. No self respecting photographer relies on CC for file storage, did you miss the part about applications continuing to work?

You apparently missed the point about the web services being unavailable. Or don't self respcting Photographers use any of them? Or do you justg have no ability to comprehend anything beyond what you personally do?

You obviously know your post is that of a stupid person, or you would have put your name on it. Why be stupid in public when you're aware of the problem? Does insulting people help with your appropriately low self-esteem?

Fortunately, as I pointed out: you can still the CC apps while this debacle is being un-FUBAR'd. That is unless it takes them up to 2 months to fix it, at which point the app will no longer be able to authenticate and validate your subscription. THEN it's "NO Photoshop for you!"

If it takes them that long to fix this, then they are truly, completely, and absolutely incompetent...

Actually, none of the CC apps work at all if the user hasn't had a chance to log in and activate them yet.

This is exactly what happened to us, fortunately we only rolled the image with the CC Packager distro out two user's workstations as a test. As a result, they are both pretty much doing no design work until this is resolved.

I'm sure we'll see a credit on our accounts due to an entire day of lost services that we paid for, right? Just like the cable and cell companies that hold monopolies in thei

For those of us who depend on Photoshop for print work Gimp does not cut it. Gimp has come a long way, but nowhere on that way has it been beneficial for print work that I see on a business level. In terms of layout, nothing holds a candle to Adobe either. I'd love to ditch their software after the whole rent to never own software model, but all I can do is not move to CC and make sure they don't get a monthly bounty out of our company's workstations by keeping with the perpetually licensed software.

Wasn't avoiding the "single point of failure" a large part of the reason for cloud services being pushed in our faces in the first place?
This is truly a spectacular failure on Adobe's part.

The Cloud can NEVER fail. NEVER I tell you! Only we can fail the cloud.

Software as a service has only one thing to recommend it. When it fails, just like it has here, you'll have someone else to blame it on. Of course your boss might not believe you, since he or she has been sold on the cloud and all it emcompasses is the zenith of civilization, the first thing mainkind has ever designed that is fail safe, and will never ever have a problem.

>The Cloud can NEVER fail. NEVER I tell you! Only we can fail the cloud.

It really can't as long as your architecture is sound. Depending on a single cloud provider is a design failure. This does not undermine the value of having a 3rd party manage servers and software so you don't need to do it in-house.

>Software as a service has only one thing to recommend it. When it fails, just like it has here, you'll have someone else to blame it on.

It really can't as long as your architecture is sound. Depending on a single cloud provider is a design failure. This does not undermine the value of having a 3rd party manage servers and software so you don't need to do it in-house.

You realize you prove my point. You simply must provide thre references on the sound architecture that will not fail. I'll wait.

Software as a service has only one thing to recommend it. When it fails, just like it has here, you'll have someone else to blame it on.

Your inability to see the benefits does not cause them to not exist.

Stop trying to put words into my mouth. Please show me where I said there were no benefits. I said it only has one thing to recommend it. The benefits which are there, go away for a multitude of reasons. And they have I have no intention of recomme

Have to second this--while there is such a thing as "Sound" cloud architecture, it exists only in theory because it's astronomically expensive to put into practice, enormously difficult to keep going, and (here's the killer) completely fails to account for human stupidity. To get metaphorical: Amazon is the best at cloud architecture because they've got massive amounts of RAID arrays on steroids, but they cannot account for human stupidity and/or ignorance. Most cloud providers run on a far less complex set

Have to second this--while there is such a thing as "Sound" cloud architecture, it exists only in theory because it's astronomically expensive to put into practice, enormously difficult to keep going, and (here's the killer) completely fails to account for human stupidity. To get metaphorical: Amazon is the best at cloud architecture because they've got massive amounts of RAID arrays on steroids, but they cannot account for human stupidity and/or ignorance. Most cloud providers run on a far less complex set-up of RAID arrays with tape backups. They basically run a mainframe in a cost effective manner, and have traded a certain amount of risk in exchange. This means they *will* go down at some point, despite their claims to the contrary, because they are running a mainframe system. And all systems fail.

And that's just looking at the storage an availability side of things.The other thing about cloud anything is authentication -- either you have a single point of authentication which can fail, or you have multiple points of authentication, which are a security nightmare. In reality, the cloud is usually both filled with single points of failure AND security nightmares; you never know who has access to your data, where it is stored, or when it will be available to you.

Creative Cloud isn't really a cloud service. It's just a website that authorizes your licenses every 2 months and provides an auto-updating service. They've never claimed Creative Cloud could never fail. They've honestly never even pitched it as cloud computing.

Creative Cloud isn't really a cloud service. It's just a website that authorizes your licenses every 2 months and provides an auto-updating service. They've never claimed Creative Cloud could never fail. They've honestly never even pitched it as cloud computing.

Authorizint your license and auto updating seem like "services". As do Purchasing Creative Cloud subscriptions, as do Creating New Adobe ID's, as do downloading applications form the site. As do fonts. Many ar ereporting tht despit Adobe's insistence to thd contrary, their programs aren't allowing them to log in

Adobe calls it Creative Cloud services. If you Cloudsterbaters want to keep moving the goalposts - as in if it failed, it is not cloud, if it fails it is not services - take it up with them. You se

Wasn't avoiding the "single point of failure" a large part of the reason for cloud services being pushed in our faces in the first place?

No, that was only the rationale used to justify it to Photoshop users. The *reason* for it in many cases- such as this one- is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users, and to get them used to a subscription model that provides those companies with a continuous income stream, rather than having the hassle of creating upgraded versions of software (gratuitous or otherwise (*)) and then having to convince users to pay for that upgrade when they might not feel the need for it.

That's not to say that cloud computing (i.e. distributed computing and distributed storage) is a bad idea in itself; of course, it has many theoretical benefits. But the concept has been co-opted and distorted by marketing, who have reduced the meaning of "cloud" to little more than a buzzword that applies to anything with online connectivity, even if that's not designed in a cloud-like way. And they've used that to make a method of control a selling point- or at least to try to sweeten the pill Photoshop users are being forced to swallow (**).

Really, what major cloud-like benefit does the latest Photoshop offer users? Does it let them harness the enormous power of a distributed computer network to massively speed up processing times on slow operations (vs. doing it on their own computer) in short bursts?

(*) Canonical example, Microsoft Word, which reached what most people needed several versions ago, but had to force upgrades to keep it selling, so kept adding new features, which also force other users who want to interoperate with those using the latest versions to *also* upgrade.
(**) Along the lines of (*) above, while some may argue that "you don't *have* to upgrade", those in industry who wish to interoperate with others and keep up with latest developments probably *will* need to upgrade eventually

>is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users

No, it only increases Adobe's control over their own software. This does not give them control over you. You can still do pretty much whatever you want with yourself or your own property.

>and to get them used to a subscription model that provides those companies with a continuous income stream

Of course. Do you somehow believe that companies should not be able to determine their own business-model? The fact that Adobe once offered an unlimited license to their software was their choice at the time. It didn't entitle you to anything regarding their future business.

No, it only increases Adobe's control over their own software. This does not give them control over you.

You're being intentionally obtuse. It not only gives Adobe control over their software, but also control over your ability to use the software. That's the only kind of "control over you" Dogtanian was talking about.

The fact that Adobe once offered an unlimited license to their software was their choice at the time. It didn't entitle you to anything regarding their future business.

No, it only increases Adobe's control over their own software. This does not give them control over you. You can still do pretty much whatever you want with yourself or your own property.

More to the point, Creative Cloud is pretty obviously aimed at thwarting piracy of Photoshop and their other apps. Based on the few dozen people I know, the Adobe apps are the most-pirated software out there (aside from maybe pirated Windows installations). I think it was too extreme a response, swinging control too far

Who claimed anything "with horror"? It was pointing out the obvious as far as I was concerned.

Yes, I agree entirely that the measure was significantly about piracy- though the vast majority of PS pirates are unlikely to pay what Adobe are charging regardless, and they certainly know this.

And yes, even though you define their "illegitimate users" as being separate from their "users", the fact remains that it *is* quite clearly also a money-grab from the non-pirating userbase, as no-one forced Adobe to co

But the concept has been co-opted and distorted by marketing, who have reduced the meaning of "cloud" to little more than a buzzword that applies to anything with online connectivity, even if that's not designed in a cloud-like way.

"Cloud" has always been a marketing driven buzzword and because of that there's no real definition of "cloud-like way". "The cloud" is derived from networking diagrams where stuff outside of the diagrammer's control and scope is handwavingly lumped into a

I attached a comment to this article before it was posted, but it looks like timothy nuked it before he made it live.

This "sniff test" for this is: hack. Not maintenance. I say that because the authentication system went down, as best I can tell, around 1700EST Wednesday. Afternoon maintenance is not unheard of, but it seems like a silly and unlikely thing to do.

Unfortunately, the comments attached to stories in the firehose don't stick when it's promoted / converted into a story on the Slashdot page. So, no nuking required (or intended), just a bit of a crufty system.

The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure that Adobe has had this in the works for over a decade now --- it's pretty obvious that for each application they identified a couple of killer features and set them aside to not be implemented for any version w/ perpetual licensing, implementing them only after the move to pay-as-you-go.

It also makes the ``release'' of CS2 when the activation servers were taken off-line look like an effort to take the wind out of the sails of competing products, incl. free and opensource o

I'm pretty sure that Adobe has had this in the works for over a decade now

I'm sure you're right. Just amazing too how customers, who might have otherwise used the same version of software for five or six years, suddenly warmed up to the idea of paying $600 a year, every year, year after year, and not really getting much in return for it. The video editors dropping Premiere is more than a minority. Sony and Avid have been gratefully accepting that new business. Since Apple tanked FCP with FCPX that le

The thing is, if you are heavily tied to Adobe products, paying $50/month to ALWAYS have the latest version is actually a good deal, from a usability perspective. Adobe likes to change/abandon file formats with every upgrade, and that causes issues. If you always have the newest version, you don't have to worry about that.

You're right, though: Adobe has no competition. But that isn't Adobe's fault. For all the screwy-ness of Adobe's software, they are STILL better than any of the alternatives, and basically always have been. They "won" their market legitimately.

Adobe changing their file formats every version is simply a lever to force people to upgrade. If they break compatibility in a highly collaborative industry like prepress, when the photography studios upgrade, everyone downstream is forced to upgrade as well.

I like perpetual licensing - it allows you to buy software with project capital (tax incentives for business versus expense). It incentivizes the software publisher to actually add value in new releases - if they don't, then people don't bu

The thing is, if you are heavily tied to Adobe products, paying $50/month to ALWAYS have the latest version is actually a good deal, from a usability perspective.

That's true if you were always using the latest version. I usually skipped a version or two before upgrading though. That lowered my monthly amortized cost for the software to considerably below the CC monthly fees.

I haven't yet decided what I'll do. Ever since I bought Lightroom, I haven't used Photoshop anywhere near as much. But when I u

Frontpage's descendant is called Expression Web, and in most ways it's a superior product (among other things, it has a very strict rendering engine built in, and it supports a range of languages including non-MS ones). It's still Microsoft though, non-free and Windows-only.

No, HTML isn't too hard for me. This is a secondary school. Student time is limited - the objective of the web-dev module is to get them to produce a simple website that ticks a list of point-getting boxes off the examination list. The examiners don't care how ugly the code is, and we haven't time to teach the students HTML - it's a lot quicker to get them using a WYSIWYG editor, then they can just put together something in a reasonable time. It'd be completly unacceptable in the real world, but as long as

It's nice that there are alternatives for some of the apps, but things don't look so good for other apps:

- InDesign --- Quark still hasn't caught back up, and Scribus is painful to use, w/ bizarre feature limitations --- I use LyX and xelatex (and moving to lualatex) instead, but not many people are willing to do that
- Illustrator --- I'd rather have FreeHand, but still find Illustrator more capable than Corel Draw and Inkscape
- PhotoShop --- fortunately, these are just pixel files,

You've got me, I've been warning my customers that Cloud services could be prone to outages like anything else.

I really hope that someone comes along and offers them some old style competition but IMHO the likelihood of that happening is slim to none. Adobe just has too much of a head start and no startup could compete with them out of the gate.

Yes and use what? It's not like there's a serious option that's an industry standard. I've never worked in a game studio where artists used something else beside photoshop or someone would even consider something else. They have the same kind of lock in microsoft had, it's not just about the "os" it's about the giant ecosystem of plugin built around photoshop, the millions of line written in custom import script for art assets in most studios, etc.

Yeah, we had the dumb luck of rolling out a test of the new system image with the CC Packager distro on it to two workstations last night. When the designers arrived this morning they realized that none of their Adobe software would work.

I'm glad that I was able to convince the department manager that having ALL of the designer's workstations updated with the new software without some testing would be a bad idea, they'd all be dead in the water waiting on restores from backup to finish.

for the proprietary camp you have Corel with painter, paintshop, corel draw, video studio, corel cad, word perfect and whatever their pdf editing software is called.for open source, you have gimp, inkscape, blender,

What a joke. Some company will come along and replace them as leader in the Graphic Design software market mark my words. It happened to the makers of Quark Xpress and it will happen to Adobe with their shitty attitude and overpriced software.

As of this writing, a sticky note on your local computer says "Windows is currently undergoing maintenance. The drive was infected by a virus you caught from an Adobe Photoshop plugin and needs to be wiped completely. We're trying to recover as much of your data as possible" Even though I've come to like some locally-hosted software, like TextEdit, I don't think I'd want tools for manipulating local media tied even loosely to the uptime of my local computer (or Windows), or endanger my Windows installation by installing anything other than completely minimal software on it.

(Of course, Adobe Create Cloud may still suck and make you dependent on complex local and remote software, but cloud services in general have been a big win, at least for me.)

I don't see how it could possibly be a win for anyone unless they only use the product a couple months out of the year and end up paying less than perpetual licenses. They failed on their file storage for the better part of a year, forced their type syncing garbage into apps if you don't use it, give out useless junk like Behance that is of no use to people who aren't looking to pimp a portfolio, and have added zero useful features that merit paying every month for it.

As I was saying: Adobe Creative Suite online may well be garbage. However, for many people other cloud software solutions probably end up being more reliable than if they try to manage their own Windows machine.

For all of you who take your cue from the Adobe marketing team, the moniker "Creative Cloud" is really a misnomer. Yes, the applications have to hit the authentication servers - every 90 days or so. The applications are run locally. The only thing that is 'cloudlike' is Adobe's 'Behance' service which is a store, a Dropbox wannabe and a typeface collection.

It's a dick move and one that benefits Adobe rather than Adobe's customers (amazing...), but it's Not The End Of The World.

Creative Cloud is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience.

"Creative Moneytrain is, as are all your documents and immediately concerning projects, dead in the water for what you may as well assume is indefinitely. Check back now, or later, or whenever and it might be randomly back up. Thank you for patiently accepting the fact that we as a corporation to which you have gladly provided 4.4 billion dollars in revenue do not now, nor have we ever cared about what it is that concerns you regarding our products or services. please piddle around angrily in Gimp until your overwhelming frustration and lack of attention span sends you galloping back to our cold teat."

That's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. In the event of a catastrophic event that could upset the lives of millions where will my InDesign layouts. When I rise from my bunker I'm going to still have trusty CS6 and those Creative Cloud subscribers are going to starve.

That's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. In the event of a catastrophic event that could upset the lives of millions where will my InDesign layouts. When I rise from my bunker I'm going to still have trusty CS6 and those Creative Cloud subscribers are going to starve.

Ever since I had to upgrade from OS/X 10.6, CS6 has become increasingly unstable. Under Lion and Mountain Lion it now crashes daily and Adobe has stopped putting out updates except for ACR, for which it seems like every time they put out a new version to support more cameras, they go and change the UI yet again on me. I have yet to find a good mix of OPENGL and font settings that make it at all behave. Fortunately, I have a rock solid fallback--Photoshop 7 (which ran GREAT under Windoze XP, and hasn't suffe

I tried to download some e-books from my library website, adobe digital editions is dead while this the authentication system is down, so can't get any e-books. And it's been more than a day without any explanation. Another disappointment courtesy DRM.

I work as a graphic and web designer, and I live in Photoshop and Illustrator. We don't utilize Typekit, or the cloud storage, so it didn't really affect us here at the office.

As long as I can still do my job, I'm fine. I'm not a HUGE fan of CC's monthly sub, but the cost/benefit ratio can be insanely beneficial if you HAVE the money for the monthly fee. Now, for my freelance work? Forget it. I'm still using CS2 at home, and don't see it changing right now unless I come into a huge chunk of change.

And you had production work to get out *today* then you just paid your stupidity tax. Start looking at Gimp or Corel Draw. You may not like them, but they're there when the "cloud" disappears or the internet is down.

I support a bunch of creative types on Macs mostly for a living, as a sys-admin, IT-know it and do-it-all. This shits been going down several times a week for the past couple of months. Usually no more than fifteen minutes to an hour at a time, but it's really easy to miss most of the time. Unless you're actively setting up new systems or inviting new users to teams your shit just keeps working and you don't notice. To say the least it's made me look like a fool more than once.

When will the bean counters realize that the money saved up front on administrative overhead is lost during the first downtime? There are benefits to having the technical staff on your side of the router and binaries that don't have needless "did your mom say it's ok" dependencies.

Maybe it is the heat, but it hasn't been a good week for clouds. Fire took out my cloud when an XO circuit killed my hosted DNS and subsequently my hosted website and "cloud" email. Different fire somehow took out one of our supplier's SIP trunks leaving them without phones.

... if Adobe had started following the suite of App-Developers in the mobile arena... requiring in-app purchases to use features...;)

Ultimately, customers are at fault - they shouldn't have renewed any services with Adobe that require the online connection... but companies will keep on abusing customers as long as they keep buying their products...

While I know that negative experiences stick longer in memory, the best commercial support experience that I had was when the vendor just was slightly sluggish (as in taking months even acknowledging a bug report. Considering that the bug reporter was a really big customer.). Other cases where more like active sabotage (e.g. telling us that our replacement hardware will be delivered the day after tomorrow, surprise, surprise, one day before delivery the order disappeared

I've been slowly migrating to OnOne Perfect Suite (although there are some things in Photoshop that I actually still need and use). It's tough, though, when you've spent the last 15-16 years training your hands to fly through Photoshop to learn new tricks... tough on us old dogs, you know.